Published Apr 10, 2018 at 12:15 PM

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development is awarding Texas $5,035,260,000 Tuesday to support long-term disaster recovery following Hurricane Harvey and flooding events in 2015 and 2016.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said in a statement Tuesday that the funds will inject billions of dollars desperately needed to help restore Texas communities.

"As the recovery process from Hurricane Harvey continues, the State of Texas is continuing to work as quickly as possible to ensure affected regions have the resources they need to fully recover. I thank Secretary Carson, as well as our federal partners, for their ongoing commitment and support throughout this process, and I look forward to continuing our work together to help communities rebuild," Abbott said.

The HUD funds will serve two purposes, recovery and mitigation from future storms.

$652,175,000 to help rebuild damaged homes, businesses and infrastructure.

$4,297,189,000 for elevating homes, property buyouts, and hardening structures from wind and water to help protect Texas families from future storms.

In addition, Houston received $61,884,000 and San Marcos $24,012,000 for mitigation of 2015 floods.

"It's clear that a number of states and local communities are still struggling to recover from a variety of natural disasters that occurred in the past three years," said HUD Secretary Ben Carson. "These grants will help rebuild communities impacted by past disasters and will also protect them from major disasters in the future."

These funds are provided through HUD's Community Development Block Grant - Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) Program and are intended to rebuild seriously damaged housing, businesses and critical infrastructure.